Glasgow’s Southside has a re-emerging music and art scene against a backdrop of diverse ethnic communities and casual racism from those looking in. Here’s a few words about the local community that I need to get off my chest.
The Southside/Shawlands area of Glasgow isn’t as aesthetically attractive as the West End. Tell-tale signs of economic reality are never far from view. Which makes it attractive as a place where art can gestate and develop without getting charged a tenner for a coffee.
I wonder how many people who live in other areas of the city regularly refer to it in racist undertones, or the not so subtle “isn’t that where all those Asians live?” as if it was some kind of terrible affliction – although the odd taxi driver will give you an even starker insight into the minds of those in fear of immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Being Irish, poverty and immigration is part of our recent history despite what the last decade brought. Unfortunately as a nation we had to be crippled financially to remember that collectively. Money can bring a lot of things but it rarely provides wisdom.
If it is one of Scotland’s most ethically diverse communities, Glasgow’s Southside also happens to be one of the friendliest.
The very first day I moved here I was given helpful advice on two separate occasions by random strangers. In living here for over two years it’s a trend that has continued – a sense of community and people generally not being a dick about things.
You’ll encounter bad apples no matter where you are on this planet, and the big-hearted Donegal man William McKeeney who helped my family move in 1988 to Co. Clare was murdered in the Southside last year.
As horrific as it was for his family and the local community back in Donegal, I told my parents on the phone that it was completely out of character for the area, that I still feel totally safe living here, and that I had a feeling the local ethnic communities who take great pride in their contribution to Glasgow wouldn’t be long in pointing the authorities in the right direction. Sure enough, justice was served.
My viewpoint remains the same. There is never any excuse for casual racism.
There’s been plenty of incidents in Dublin of rich, spoilt, self-entitled, white young males kicking another male to death after a nightclub confrontation and then have Daddy try to buy their way out of jail time.
So let’s not confuse skin colour with animals ruined by non-existent parenting, OK?
NEXT UP: A CLOSER LOOK AT THE GLAD CAFE
